Kuo Ming-chi on Apple: Foldable screens will be the biggest highlight next year.

Guo Mingji mistakenly thought that Chinese Android manufacturers would still be willing to keep up with and compete comprehensively with Apple; he also thought that Apple could easily define a trend.

In 2026, the biggest highlight of Apple's mobile phone products will be its foldable - screen iPhone. The foldable - screen phone is the best carrier for Apple's AI. Apple's foldable - screen phone will drive competition across the entire consumer electronics industry, and the third wave in the foldable - screen phone market is coming.

At the end of November, during this conversation, Guo Mingji quite comprehensively and in detail talked about the hot trends he recognized, including topics such as the currently popular Google TPU and the circular trading in the AI industry. However, the focus of his conversation and the part that the outside world believes in him more are undoubtedly still about Apple.

His logic is very clear. The current situation of Apple this year and the background for the next two years are as follows: Apple has been shouting the slogan of "AI Ready" for a long time, but it experienced an embarrassing failure at the rare WWDC conference, and Siri is far from being ready - for those who experience ChatGPT and Gemini every day, it's far from good enough.

The foldable - screen iPhone is worth looking forward to.

Surprisingly, the fact that AI is not ready has not affected the performance of the iPhone 17 series at all. The standard version of iPhone 17 without AI has been a great success. The total production of the iPhone 17 series has exceeded 96 million units, a significant increase of more than 10 million units compared to the iPhone 16, which meets what Mr. Guo predicted a year ago.

Unfortunately, the sales of the iPhone Air did not meet expectations. Apple has reduced its production to 9 million units, and the release of the iPhone Air 2 will be postponed to the year after next. In the next year or so, Apple expects the total sales of the Air to be about the same.

Guo Mingji admitted that he likes the iPhone Air. Like the standard version of the iPhone 17, this product reflects Apple and Cook's desire to survive and their fighting spirit. When Xiaomi and vivo are seizing Apple's market share while imitating Apple, Apple must show more sincerity and control its tendency to make only incremental improvements - at least, it should offer something different.

The iPhone Air is quite different. Being different means there are both right and wrong aspects. Both Jobs and Ive have had such experiences, like the early Fat nano and the titanium - alloy Power Book. But this is the path of evolution. These products have accumulated experience for the iPhone 4 and the Macbook Air.

Changing the topic, what different features will Apple offer next year? Apple's own AI will still not be ready. The release of the standard version of the iPhone 18 will be postponed to 2026, and the Air 2 will also be pushed to 2026. The only available phones will be the iPhone Pro. The iPhone will have an anticipated variable - aperture function next year, but that alone is not enough.

The only highlight left is the foldable - screen iPhone. Previously, there were rumors that the release of Apple's foldable - screen phone would be postponed by one year, and Guo Mingji provided an explanation and response. He learned that the plans for some components of the foldable - screen iPhone have not been finalized yet. For a product that is supposed to be launched next year, this is an obvious delay.

Zhiwu can provide a little note. There may have been significant adjustments to the plan, materials, and suppliers of a key part of the Apple foldable - screen phone. A key assembly company has proposed a new plan. Initially, the person who firmly released this information was Guo Mingji, and the two listed companies are also the ones with the best performance in the A - share market regarding the Apple foldable - screen concept.

We should trust the vision of Apple's most important partners. They must be dissatisfied with the current material plan. After all, Huawei made such a choice early on. We should also trust their capabilities, and the new plan will surely be fine.

Guo Mingji believes that this delay will not affect the release of the foldable - screen iPhone. At worst, Apple can release it first and then launch it a few months later. Apple has done this before - the foldable - screen iPhone will definitely be released in October 2025, and it will be the biggest highlight.

Guo Mingji casually mentioned an imprecise concept. Samsung first triggered the first wave of hype for foldable - screen phones, and Huawei led the second wave. Now, Apple will bring about the third wave of the foldable - screen trend. He believes that the release of Apple's foldable - screen phone will bring back the investment wave in foldable - screen Android phones.

The example he gave is Samsung. Recently, Samsung has reduced the thickness of its foldable - screen phone to 8.9 millimeters, which is just better than the expected thickness of the iPhone foldable - screen phone.

Guo Mingji didn't mention Xiaomi, vivo, and OPPO. These three manufacturers are not excited at all about the fact that Apple is launching a foldable - screen phone. Some of Apple's capabilities cannot be imitated for now. The foldable - screen phone market cannot bring more profits to the bosses, neither in terms of hardware profits nor in terms of more Internet - related profits.

The reality is that these companies will not change their strategies in the foldable - screen market. The release and performance of the foldable - screen iPhone will not affect this strategy.

The recent significant increase in storage prices will bring about some major changes. AI has taken away the global production capacity of storage chips. What used to be Huawei's disadvantage has now become an advantage. Will Huawei use this opportunity to gain more market share? Against this background, will the significance and positioning of the foldable - screen phone for Huawei change accordingly?

For Xiaomi, vivo, and OPPO, the foldable - screen phones are like a burden. With the storage prices rising so much, should they still continue with foldable - screen phones? If Apple raises the price of its foldable - screen phone to $2000, is it meaningful to sell at half the price of Apple with the same BOM cost? Apart from getting 300,000 former Apple users each year to experience high - end user operations, what other benefits are there?

However, another perspective that Guo Mingji mentioned this time is worth paying attention to. He believes that the foldable - screen phone is the best implementation for edge - side AI. The reason is simple: generative AI requires a larger screen.

Zhiwu has also mentioned this phenomenon before. Google's foldable - screen phone combined with its Gemini has shown some bright spots in the US market. As a result, Google has even promoted cooperation with Lenovo and Samsung. However, this phenomenon is more related to Gemini's subscription - based payment mechanism. The screen is an important factor, but not the most important one.

Combining a foldable - screen phone with a mobile assistant might be a good attempt. As previously mentioned by Zhiwu, a niche product with an annual sales volume of 200,000 units is very suitable as a test field.

Unfortunately, the three stable Chinese manufacturers, Xiaomi, vivo, and OPPO, do not have AI, at least not their own AI. They have advertising - related AI but no user - centric AI.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Zhiwu Technology Review" (ID: IntellegentThings). Author: Wen/Zhiwu. Republished by 36Kr with permission.